In Spiegel Flynt Leverett throws cold water on the Iran election conspiracy theorists in the West:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mahmud Ahmadinedschad hat einen überwältigenden Wahlsieg errungen. Sind Sie überrascht?
Leverett: Nein. Ich wäre überrascht gewesen, wenn er verloren hätte. Die westlichen Medien haben die Begeisterung für seinen wichtigsten Herausforderer Hossein Mussawi grob überschätzt. Sie haben fast gar nicht mitbekommen, wie eindeutig Ahmadinedschad etwa als Sieger der TV-Debatte im Wahlkampf angesehen wurde. Bei amerikanischen und westlichen Politikern gab es viel Wunschdenken – und das hatte leider auch einen starken Einfluss auf die Medienberichterstattung.
English:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won an overwhelming electoral victory. Are you surprised?
Leverett: No. I would have been surprised if he had lost. The Western media overstated the surge of his main challenger Hossein Mousavi over the last couple of weeks. They missed almost entirely how Ahmadinejad was perceived to have been the victor in the TV debate, for instance. There was an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking among American and Western policymakers and that has had a marked impact on the media coverage.
Hat tip: Politico
For German speakers the rest of the interview is very interesting. Leverett goes on to emphasize that the Western media sold us all a bill of goods, that American politicians mistakenly assume that the Iranian political system works the way ours does, some observations about President Obama’s Cairo speech, etc.
Please note that Leverett’s comments are much in the same vein as were mine yesterday.
Update
Andrew Sullivan needs to read a little more closely. I’m not defending the Iranian regime and in virtually every post I’ve written on this subject I’ve said as clear as clear can be that I don’t think the Iranian system is capable of producing a legitimate result.
